Ken Writes About Stuff: Vol. 3

Ken Writes About Stuff Vol. 3

KWAS Vol. 3 is a collection of supplements written by master Lovecraftian writer and GUMSHOE guru Kenneth Hite. Discover hideous creatures, manage the global war against aliens in a campaign frame, or learn to command the alchemical elements in this collection of fear and fun!

In the ENnie-award winning Ken Writes About Stuff series, Kenneth Hite turns his considerable writing talents and encyclopedic knowledge of game design, history, the occult and all things Mythos to bear on new topics. From hideous creatures to GUMSHOE innovations, from Moon Dust Men to martial arts, Ken illuminates the dark corners of the genre with 4000-word supplements.

Each PDF includes a deep delve into some deeply weird topic, plus crunchy bits for your GUMSHOE game. If you’re a fan of Suppressed Transmissions,Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, The Nazi Occult or Day After Ragnarok, KWAS is a must-have.

All episodes are available in epub, mobi and PDF format.

KWAS Vol. 3 features:

Hideous Creatures: Tcho-Tcho. “The nastiest people who ever lived … and whatever it is they were doing, they weren’t going to let a stranger in on it.” Do you really want to know what the Tcho-Tcho know? Too late.

The Spear of Destiny. Is it the Spear that pierced Christ’s side, or the Spear of Odin? Does it grant true kingship or invincibility? Who has borne it through the millennia, and who seeks its true whereabouts now? This issue pierces the legend to reach the truth — and then makes the legend invincible. Plus, a look at the Spear for Night's Black Agents, The Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, and TimeWatch.

Hideous Creatures: Great Race of Yith. “As mental barriers wore down, I beheld great masses of thin vapour in various parts of the building and in the streets below. These steadily grew more solid and distinct, till at last I could trace their monstrous outlines with uncomfortable ease.” From unguessable aliens to cone-shaped librarians to beetle-conquerors, the Great Race of Yith takes many forms. Learn to recognize them, before they take yours!

Mutant City Spies. Ten years after the ghost flu hit, the world is changed — but the secret world stays the same. Enemies of your country still plot, terrorists still scheme — but now they might have superpowers. An espionage-specops frame for Mutant City Blues takes the super fights into the shadows.

Hideous Creatures: Wendigo. ” In spite of his exceeding mental perturbation, Simpson struggled hard to detect its nature, and define it …” Cannibal spirit or arctic ogre? Wind-walking demigod or folie a faim? Hunt the Wendigo down — or up into the skies, where mad auroras roll.

Moon Dust Men: MAJESTIC Overwatch. The Moon Dust Men are the tip of the spear. MAJESTIC-12 aims it. Manage the global war against the aliens with this new GUMSHOE subsystem. Do you build retro-engineered Aurora craft, or bioroids to fight on the Moon? Do you launch satellite screens or dig in anti-saucer lasers? You decide where the black budget goes — and who it goes after.

Hideous Creatures: Hunting Horror. “I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye. . . .” Avatar or servitor, this winged and coiling horror haunts the dark and hunts those who seek it out. Shine a little light on this most shadowy of creatures!

Moon Dust Men: Galileo Uplift. To fight aliens, one must use the alien. Take it apart, reverse-engineer it, rebuild it, turn it into armor and sensors and weapons and aircraft good enough to win a war against an enemy from the stars. Tech and gear for your high-powered Moon Dust Men game, powered by a new GUMSHOE “tech tree” subystem for bootstrapping invention and development.

Las Vegas: 1968takes you to Sin City in the heyday of Howard Hughes and the Rat Pack, the mob and the Mormons, the fear and the loathing. Everything’s for sale and nothing’s for certain, except the house wins. Featuring happening hooks for vampire conspiracies, esoterrorism, and Fall of Delta Green Mythos machinations!

Alchemy.Chemistry or magic? Madness or miracles? Poison or power? Blend all those elements -- and more -- with Alchemy, the latest Zoom in on a historical magic system for GUMSHOE gaming. Operating at every level from the base dungeon-crawl to the Awakened Working, this magic system gives you the secrets of matter -- and maybe a touch of mercury poisoning.

Bast.“What fully civilised soul but would eagerly serve as high priest of Bast?” She Who Scratches, the Lady of the Ointment Jar, the great cat-goddess of nighted Khem comes alive in all her varied forms: as a Trail of Cthulhu titan (complete with her monstrous Brood of Bubastis), mysterious Ashen Stars entity, TimeWatch cult leader, and 13th AgeIcon. Good kitty!

Unspeakable Cult: The Starry Wisdom. In our final issue of the year, we give the Hideous Creatures treatment not to one beast but to a whole cult -- the "disliked and unorthodox Starry Wisdom sect." Vile rites and terrifying symbolism unfold to shadow your Trail of Cthulhu game, along with alternate takes, investigative leads, possible echoes, and sinister scenario seeds.

There is also a bonus edition, available only with this collection: Foul Congeries 3. This issue opens the books on Lovecraftian monsters that have never taken stat-block form before in any game, including the Gaseous Wraith, Raktajihva, and Y’m-bhi.

These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

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For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.

Original electronic format

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